


Stay With Me

by supervillainesses



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman: The Animated Series
Genre: F/F, angst angst angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 03:35:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10585593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supervillainesses/pseuds/supervillainesses
Summary: Set after the episode "House and Garden" of BTAS, Ivy vacates Gotham, only to be tailed by Harley Quinn along the way.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Whoops

            No matter how much distance Ivy put between herself and Gotham, it never seemed like enough. It was _inside_ of her, the filth of the city, the grime of its streets, the impurity of its air, and it haunted her. It loomed and groaned and rattled in her bones, calling out, though there was nothing for her there. Nothing.

            When the plane landed, and she joined the crowd out and into the night, she wondered if the people around her could smell the stench of the city on her. Sometimes, Gotham felt like a visible disability. People didn’t function correctly there. Even the “normal” ones, the ones who didn’t skulk in the night, clad in costumery and ripping off the every-man, they all bore the same marks. Pam was above that. She had finesse. She had purpose. She wasn’t aimless, pulling heists for the sake of it, or the thrill. She had a mission, a raison d’être, unlike her colleagues.

            Unlike Harley.

            Pam shook the thought of the blonde jester out of her mind. As if she didn’t have enough to mourn over. If Harley wanted that demented clown so badly, so be it. She had done all she could. Pamela Isley was not born to shepherd wounded and wayward lambs; she was a messiah of a different kind, for she spoke for the earth, and it spoke to her.

            She took her luggage from the claim, and shifted the weight of the handbag on her shoulder. The book inside was light, but a burden nonetheless. She wondered when she had become so prone to shouldering the weight of things so much heavier than her, and if she would ever shift the weight away from herself. Perhaps that was merely life; to be weighted and laden until one day your body wore out from the heap.

            “You a’right, miss?” The young man in a sharp suit leaned away from the car he had been perched against. Pam’s eyes fell upon the keys hooked onto his finger. “Those eyes of yours ain’t meant for tears. Penny for your thoughts?”

            He was offering more than a penny. Pam could smell the intent; her body was made to breed that intent. Even when her pheromones were at bay, quiet and untroubled beneath her surfaces, she was still a sight to behold. Striking red hair, glittering green eyes, a certain sway in her step; Harley once told her it was her gift. To be the showiest flower in the bouquet.

            Too tired for the usual build up, Pam merely drew the man into a kiss, and he fell to the ground as if she had sucked the soul out of him. She bent low and took the keys from his hand, stroking his blond hair and humming sweetly before straightening. As if she could grant him a good dream.

            As she drove away, she caught a glimpse of the prone body on the pavement she’d left behind through the rearview mirror. Such a benevolent attack. For a moment, it wasn’t his blonde head she saw on the concrete. Pretty little things, mindless little things, the sort of people who so willingly approached a stranger with kind intentions, they deserved any sweetness they could get, even if all she could offer was a dream.

* * *

 

            When escaping, she hadn’t really put much thought into where she’d go. All she could see was the luster of a dream life reduced to sludge by Batman’s hands. Vermont, she decided as she drove down a stretch of wooded road, had not been a bad hasty choice. All around, she could hear the chorus of the trees, mournful as a dirge, singing softly in the night air. They could sense the feeling clawing at her chest, the raw and bitter tightness, as if her ribcage would fold inward and destroy everything within. Was it the sadness of leaving, or being left behind?

            The man she’d seized the car from had a decent sum of money hidden in his glove compartment, along with a large stash of drugs within his seat cushions. Pam should have known that she could change the venue as many times as she’d like, but the contents would always remain the same. Even the sweetest golden-headed child could be harboring a wealth of devils in their heart.

            She wrapped up the drugs in a garbage bag and tossed them into the dumpster outside a gas station. Even if someone were to have seen her throw them out of the car, all they’d have to go on was the plates of a stolen vehicle. A vehicle she would be ditching soon as she found the right motel.

            Nothing fancy, nothing too local. The more isolated and seedy the better; her type would more easily go unquestioned as she paid the fee in a credit card that didn’t bear her name. The cash she would save until absolutely necessary. Her method of robbery was subtle, but she would still have to gauge the area to know exactly how much was too much. Did crooks and thieves wear costumes outside of Gotham and Metropolis?

            The motel she decided on was a few dozen miles off the highway, surrounded by trees and a bit rundown. It was fashioned out of what looked like a vaguely renovated old house, large enough to fit about a dozen occupants. The lawn was overgrown and drying in the summer heat, but with her presence she could probably coax them into an easier life. If only people were like plants.

            She ditched the car on the shoulder of a road a few miles south of the motel, and resigned herself for hoofing it there with her belongings strapped over her back. The weight of the book in her bag fell upon her again.

            Brandishing her past like part of her own cross, Pam shouldered her burden and tread out into the night.

* * *

 

            The girl at the counter was barely sixteen. She stared at Pam with eyes heavily lined with kohl, chewing gum with an open mouth as she approached.

            “One room?” The girl asked, twirling a braid around her finger. Pam leaned over the desk and spied she was doing what appeared to be geometry. Definitely a part-time job. Perhaps the business was family owned. “Or d’you need directions to a Motel 6? Honestly, this place is a dive, so I’d totes give you directions. Nana doesn’t deserve the business she gets.”

            Pam held up one finger, and slid the credit card across the wooden desk. The girl didn’t even look at the name as she ran it through the machine. She had done this before.

            “2B, first one up the stairs on the right. If you want breakfast tomorrow, Nana’s making blood sausage and eggs.”

            Fighting the urge to vomit, Pam took the key from the girl’s outstretched hand and found her room. The wallpaper was molding. The room smelled dank and wet. An old freestanding bathtub was crudely installed at the far end of the room, and the small TV with antennae and a dial for changing channels looked to be from the same year as the tub. The bed, at least, appeared clean.

            Pam threw her belongings to the floor, and flung herself, face down, onto the bed.

            She cried for the first time in years.

* * *

 

            It was two days before she considered leaving the room. She had spent the first in bed, watching shadows change with the light coming in through the window. She couldn’t recall a time where she’d felt a tiredness so bone-deep before. Before she knew it, the day had gone, and night began again. The next morning, she spent an hour scrubbing the tub, and then most of the day sitting in it, up to her shoulders in warm water, gradually waning in warmth as the day went on.

            Downstairs, she could hear the faint sound of an argument waging below, a sound that almost harkened her back to the city she’d left behind.

            The flowers on the windowsill cried for her to come outside and greet them in the sun, but night crept up again, and Pam curled up in the bed, naked, soaking wet, and shaking in tears.

* * *

 

            The phone call came on the third day.

            “Mr. Bartlett?” A voice from the other side of the door, old and slightly bitter, inquired. Bartlett must have been the last name of the man she had knocked out a few days prior. The woman’s voice was dripping with sarcasm; her granddaughter must have told her about the redheaded woman who had checked in under a young man’s name. “You have a call down at the desk. It sounds urgent.”

            Pam’s first response was the police, but that made no sense. There was no way even the Bat could have found her so fast. She had only told one person the general direction of where she had gone, so they could tend to her plants for however long she decided to remain gone.

            Curiosity got the better of her. Pam tugged on the only pair of jeans to her name, not just the only pair she’d brought with her, and a shirt. The itching at her collarbone told her she’d pulled it on backward, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. About much of anything, really.

            Downstairs, an old woman was arguing in hushed tones with the girl who had checked Ivy in a few nights ago. They both turned to stare at her when she cleared her throat. The older woman put her hands on her hips.

            “I have two rules here,” she stated, “the first being I don’t care who you are, but I at least need a believable name to call you by, _Nicholas_. And, second, if you have a needy girlfriend, don’t give them the line to my motel.”

            Needy girl…?

            “Here she is,” the braided girl—Hannah, her name tag read—handed Pam the phone. “She sounds crazy.”

            Pam could hear the screaming before she even put the phone to her ear.

            “—AND IF I DON’T GET TO TALK TO HER SOON, I’M GONNA RIP OFF SOMEONE’S HEAD, YA HEAR ME?”

            “ _Harley_ ,” it was the first word Pam had spoken in days, and her voice cracked so unbecomingly. It sounded needy, it sounded human.

            “Red!” Harley sounded as if she were bouncing up and down. “Oh, I just _knew_ I’d find ya! Take that, B-Man. There’s a new detective in town, and her name is Harley Motherfucking Quinn.”

            “How did you find me?” Pam, aware of the eyes on her, shot them a glare, and turned away. “I only told Selina I was going away for a while to Vermont.”

            “Yeah, and after that, I checked on police type stuff in the state. They found some kid randomly passed out in the parking lot of an airport with a mega-high dose of plant stuff in his system. Their police force may not know your signature, but I sure as heck do. Then, I found the report on where they’d found the stolen car, so I checked all the places in the area. Only one motel around for miles. So, I called up their police department and gave them an ‘anonymous tip’ that someone matching the description of the carjacker was somewhere far, far away from where you are. You’re welcome.”

            “I don’t need saving, Harley. I just need to be left alone.”

            She was quiet a moment; all she could hear was uneven breathing. “Well, that’s gonna be a problem.”

            “Why?”

            “I’m right outside.”

            Pam turned, and through the window by the front door, there stood Harley, waving with a nervous smile. The sunlight behind her was so strong it blotted out nearly everything but the edges of her, but Harley was easy to spot.

            “She showed up yesterday and demanded I let her up to see you,” the old woman huffed, arms folded now. “I run a safe house for battered women, not women who look like they’re bringing the trouble with them.”

            Bringing the trouble with them? Pam slammed the phone on the hook, and Harley flinched outside, holding her phone away from her ear. Pam let the front door slam shut behind her. She strode up to Harley, and grabbed her by the shoulders.

            “My god, Harley.” Pam whispered. “What did he do?”

            Harley, blushing, looked down, letting her bangs fall over the black eye blotting out a fourth of her pale face. She smiled, and her healing split lip nearly reopened.

            “Y’know,” Harley chuckled. “Puddin’s so funny, how much he wants to be different from B-Man. When Batsy and I go toe-to-toe, he doesn’t really _hit_ , y’know? The caped dork just aggressively picks me up or kinda tosses me outta the way. Puddin’ ain’t afraid to use his fist. Tell the girls inside Mr. J ain’t with me, Red? I wanna go inside and talk to ya about…things.”

            Pam, swallowed, and nodded.

            She could, it seemed, leave Gotham behind, but the city would never let her go.

            “A _name_ ,” Hannah’s grandmother stated as Pam ushered Harley inside, an arm around her shaking shoulders. “Or I call the police.”

            “It’s Pamela,” Pam answered immediately, selfishly. “Pamela Quinn.”

* * *

 

            “Where did you sleep, if they didn’t let you in yesterday?” Pam, in the makeshift little kitchen area at the corner of her room, made hot tea. After so many days of not eating, she needed something to ease her back into it, and the hot drink would soothe Harley’s mouth injuries. “Don’t tell me you slept out there in the cold.”

            “Wasn’t cold, Red, it was about eighty-degrees last night.” Harley’s voice made it clear she was trying to lighten the mood, but there was no way around it. The room was full of a thick, unknowable atmosphere. A hand was over Pam’s as she poured the first cup. “Lemme do it; ya hands are shaking.”

            Pam nodded numbly, and sat at the edge of the bed. Her hands were trembling so badly that even clasping them together wouldn’t make it stop. Feelings were becoming tangled up and hectically knotted inside of her, so many in the same shades of sadness and rage, and she had no outlet for it all.

            “I sorta climbed in through a window and crashed in an empty room down the hall,” Harley chuckled. “I considered goin’ around and banging on all the doors until I found ya, but I didn’t wanna be rude. No sugar, I remember ya like yours like that.”

            Pam accepted the cup with a weak smile, and gulped at it eagerly. It burned her mouth, but the warmth in her stomach made her realize how cold she’d felt.

            “I hear ya got hitched,” Harley sat down beside Pam. And there it was, the smell of Gotham. It was all over Harley, the smog and decay. It was imagined, Pam told herself. Harley smelled like sunlight, like daffodils and the air after the sky clears up from a long rainstorm. Harley didn’t smell like rot and ruin. “Guess I can’t ask why I wasn’t invited to the wedding.”

            Pam flung her empty cup away, the cheap china shattering against a far wall. Harley squeezed her arm so hard it might bruise.

            “I had _everything_ I ever wanted, Harl.” Pam whispered, clenching her hands into fists. “Do you have any idea how long it took me to finally grasp a sliver of happiness in my hands? I had a house, a garden, I had ch—”

            Pam got to her feet and made a beeline for the tub. Leaning over the side, she vomited what little she had in her stomach. Harley was beside her in a breath, holding back her hair as Pam heaved and sobbed incoherently, repeating over and over that she hated, hated, hated, but what she hated she couldn’t say. She was filled with so much hatred, so much rage. Perhaps at everything, perhaps at nothing at all.

            Harley ran the water in the tub to flush out the mess, and curled an arm around Pam’s waist as they leaned against the porcelain.

            “You can’t have kids, huh?” Harley murmured, running her hand across Pam’s hair as her head was anchored onto her shoulder. “You feel all empty and broken inside. Like nothing really matters. Like you’re just kinda _living_ but with nowhere to go. You want something you can hold, something that’s your own and a part of ya, something no one can take away and tell you it ain’t real. You wanna need, and be needed in return.”

            “As if you understand what you’re saying,” Pam scoffed, tears flowing freely from her eyes. The emptiness was expanding within her, eating her away from the inside out.

            “D’you honestly think Mr. J wants kids?” Harley chuckled bitterly. “Red, I know exactly what you feel like.”

            “Do you _seriously think_ this is just about that?” Pam rose to her feet, banging her head against the tub in her haste. She grasped her arms around the new throbbing spot, brushing off Harley’s attempts to soothe her. “No, Harley! I can’t have children! I’m too damn toxic to even so much as hold someone’s _hand_ ; of course I can’t have children! I can’t have anything! Everything I’ve ever wanted in life has left me! Everything! I wanted to be a scientist, and a man took that from me. I wanted to be a mother, and my own body took that from me. I wanted to have a family, and y— _Batman_ took that from me!”

            Harley bit her lip. “Red, you weren’t gonna say Batman there, were ya?”

            “Of course I was,” Pam, voice rough from vomiting, crying, screaming, couldn’t look at Harley. “He’s to blame. He _killed them_. My plants. My children. I’ll kill him. I’ll _kill him!_ I’ll take everything he holds dear!”

            “Why’d you use my last name?” Harley asked, her voice was quiet. Her arms were behind her back as she inched forward, keeping herself low. Pam wanted to grasp her, shout that she wasn’t Joker. She would never hurt her, not in that way. “Downstairs. You used my name.”

            “I needed something quick.” There was red in Pam’s cheeks. “I needed a last name, and I thought of one. That’s all.”

            “How long have ya known you can’t have kids, Red?” Harley asked, moving in closer. “Since before me, or after me?”

            “What?”

            Harley smiled, tears in her eyes. “It’s ’cause of me. You did that, brainwashed that guy, made those plant clones, because of me.”

            Pam snorted. “Someone’s conceited.”

            “Ya used my shtick, Ivy!” Harley spread her hands in exasperation. “But in reverse! Ya found a doctor in Arkham, and ya made him believe ya wanted him. It’s just like me and P—”

            Pam grabbed Harley and pinned her to the bed, her hand over her mouth and her knee pressing into her stomach. Her hands were shaking again, her teeth were so tightly clenched her jaw popped from the strain. Harley’s eyes, so bright and blue, were so fearfully wide that Pam could see her own expression reflected back at her. All that hatred, all the tangled feelings, she was pouring them out onto Harley. She rolled away, pressing the heels of her palms into her eyes so hard she saw sparks.

            “I’m nothing like him,” Pam whimpered, feeling Harley’s arm drape around her shoulder. “I’m _not_ him.”

            But she was. Harley was right. She had done everything the Joker had, when he had taken Harley away, sunk his hooks into her and dragged her under. The vision of the scars on Harley’s back, the ones Pam had caught a glimpse when she accidentally walked in on Harley changing into her costume a few days after they met. They hadn’t known each other enough yet, and in the three months they had spent together in Toxic Acres, there had never been a chance to bring them up. If he hadn’t shown up, if _Joker_ hadn’t come back, maybe she could have asked, could have told her…told her…

            Pam felt a hand clamp over her own mouth. Eyes open, she saw Harley loom over her, pushing her knee into Pam’s stomach, pinning her. Pam had never seen such viciousness before. Harley’s lips were curled back in a snarl, her split lip open with blood staining her teeth and chin. Even the hyenas had never appeared so beastly.

            “How does that feel?” There were tears in Harley’s eyes now. “How does it feel to be all defenseless and hurting for once? Huh?!”

            She wasn’t looking at Pam, or talking to Pam. She was talking to the _thing_ Pam had become, in their time apart. Someone ruthless and calculating and venomous. The manipulator. A reflection of Joker.

            Harley’s hand moved to Pam’s throat.

            “Harl,” hands still shaking, Pam reached up and brushed the tears from those glassy blue eyes. She had meant to take her hands away, but they lingered, the fingertips brushing that golden hair. Harley’s grip only tightened. “I’m not him. Not Joker…not Joker…not J…not Jason…not him…”

            As Pam’s vision went black, she realized it all, hovering at that bank between life and death. Weightless and safely anchored there, cradled in Harley’s hands.

            The sick thing was, she was almost happy to die this way. Harley would never, _never_ have the courage to do this to the real thing. Joker would never know the feeling of being at someone’s mercy, unless it was at the hands of the Bat, and everyone in Gotham knew the erotic colors Joker liked to paint that dynamic in. He oft bragged about it as if it were an affair, with such vivid depravity that even Crane blushed, and Harley would be unable to look the man who was her obsession in the eye.

            What Pam had done, how she had done it, it was all for _her_. Because of _her_. She had her taste of domestic bliss before that doctor. It was the reason why she hadn’t invited Harley to the wedding. She never would have gone through with the plan. She would have shut it all down, for the sake of the golden-headed girl who would be beside her at the altar, instead of in front of her, hand-in-hand. Three months was not long at all, foolishly short, recklessly short, and yet…

            “L…lo…Harley…I…”

            Pam lost consciousness before she could even collect what to say.

* * *

 

            Pam awoke to an empty bed and a dark room. If it weren’t for the pain, swelling up inside of her like bitter bile, she would have thought she’d dreamt up Harley’s entire visit. Outside, the flowers on the sill cried into the night, singing a lonely song. Harley hadn’t only left the room, she had left entirely.

            The money was gone. Pam triple-checked the bag shoved in the corner of the room. The credit cards, the cash, all of it. Harley hadn’t even left the roll of quarters in the front pocket.

            Dizziness crashed over her like never before. She shoved her hands into her hair, her stomach fighting to vomit again but could find nothing to expel. This couldn’t be happening! This couldn’t be happening! This couldn’t be happening!

            She lay limp on the floor, arms splayed before her, for hours until the door slowly cracked open around dawn.

            The dull amber light from the window doused Harley, the sight of it so beautiful it constricted Ivy’s throat, and she realized she couldn’t do this. This girl would be the death of her. To be capable of breaking her down and raising her back up again and again; Pamela was the savior of the new age, and yet Harley was the one raising her from Hell.

            “Jesus _Christ!_ ” Harley squeaked, dropping paper bags to the floor to help scrape Pam off of it. “Red, tell me you didn’t OD.”

            “You _left_ ,” Pam spat, her mouth dry. “Y-you took…money…”

            Harley moved Pam’s limp form to the bed, frowning. “Your shirt’s backward, Red. You’re a mess.”

            _Because of you_ , Pam thought bitterly as Harley sat her up, bracing her weight to rearrange the shirt around her torso. Tears began to fall from Ivy’s eyes again as Harley’s hands, now so, so gentle, laid her back down. _It’s all because of you. How dare you go from so evil, choking the life from me, to laying me down to bed, stroking my hair as if I’m a child? I hate you, Harley Quinn. I hate you. I hate you so much I drown in the misery of it every time I think of you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you._

“Don’t leave,” was Ivy’s weak response instead, and she found her hand twisted up in the material of Harley’s shirt. “Stay with me.”

            Harley’s smile was small, but brilliant like the first crack of sunlight through a thick blanket of clouds, and Pam was left warmer for it. Damn her.

            “Using that guy’s credit card was risky, Red.” Harley took off her shoes and flung them off into the corner pile of Pam’s belongings, completely at ease, as if anything which belonged to Pam could easily belong to her. “So was that huge stinkin’ pile of cash ya had in that duffel bag. I opened you a… _special_ bank account. Puddin’ taught me ’bout how to do it ages ago. Dunno if that Nicholas guy’ll even report that money _gone_ , though. I could smell the weed on it; so could the crooked teller that helped me make the account. A low-cut shirt and the world’s your oyster, y’know? The account’s under a different name, though, but at least you could pass for this name much more than you could pass for Nicholas Bartlett.”

            “Who am I?” The question felt so heavy, so bogged down. Harley took away any semblance of who she was and threw her orderly world into orbit.

            “Pamela Quinn,” Harley grinned at her from over her shoulder. “It’s like we got a civil union.”

            Oh, she was cruel.

            “So, when you fell asleep, I did the account thing, got you some credit cards, nice fake ID, and I also got us some groceries. I also watered the flowers outside. I know they ain’t yours—heh, what am I sayin’? As if ya think any plant _isn’t_ yours. But I figured it’d make ya smile after that nap.”

            There it was, Harley’s greatest gift: denial. Pam was unsure of how deeply it went, how much was bravado and how much was retroactive reimagining, but it was damn near impossible to fault her for it. In a lot of ways, it likely kept her saner, living with Joker.

            Harley made macaroni and cheese. It was so simple, yet Ivy’s whole body quaked at the smell of it. It had been so long since she’d eaten.

            “C’mon, up-up.” Harley nudged her foot. “Red, can’t you sit up?”

            The pathetic answer was no. Moving even the slightest bit made her head soar for distant heights, put white splotches in her vision. She had not been in such a sorry state in so long, not since she got her powers, not since…

            Harley propped Pam up and slid in behind her, cradling her as she fed her spoonfuls of food. Any trace of humiliation was blotted out by the ache in her stomach, the gratitude for finally being fed.

            “S’a’right, Red. Think of it like you’re being pampered. I gotcha. No need to cry.”

* * *

 

            It wasn’t until nightfall, after spending the afternoon dozing in bed, no words spoken, when the realization hit Pam. Harley was in the tub, scrubbing her hair, either unaware or uncaring of the view of her scarred up back she bared to Pam as she went through the motions.

            “I’m not him, Harley.”

            The blonde little jester raised her head when she spoke. “Wha?”

            “He kicked you out again, didn’t he?” Pam, now able to sit up after having some food and real rest, got to her feet, and stood at the window. Seeing all the green that lay outside this small room, this confined space, this strange little world the two of them had created, grounded her. “So you went looking for me. You found out I wasn’t there. And you saw it. The hope. The hope that there would be yet another person, another person you could need, could rely on. Someone who is distant and cold. When I…when I _snapped_ at you, I saw it. I saw you. I saw you seeing him in me.”

            “Th-that’s crazy, Red.” Harley stuttered, going back to scrubbing. “I wanted to find ya ’cause you’re my friend. My only friend in the whole wide world. And I’m yours. We look out for each other.”

            “You’re mine, and I’m yours, huh? Funny thing is about your kind of joking, Harl, is that you’re not afraid to lie to make ’em laugh.”

            “Red…”

            “You heard about it, how I’d replicated yours and Joker’s story, and you saw your chance. You already knew, deep down, that I’d done this, done it all, because of you. But you had to prove it yourself. You’ve done your damnedest to come off as vapid and airheaded, Harley Quinn, but you were still trained in reading the criminal mind. I’m not a placeholder, Harley. My heart isn’t big enough for that.”

            When Pam turned, she found that Harley’s face was entirely deadpan.

            “It was easy, figurin’ out those whys, Red. But the deeper ones, I still don’t get. I understand that ya did all this because of me, but why because of me?”

            “I’ve thought about it, and the only reason I can come up with still makes no sense. My plants, my children, they’re so great in number. Despite the ruthless nature of man, my children still hold their own. They’ve lived on before me, and they will live on long after I’m gone. I hear their cries and voices and singing every moment of every day, thousands of them, millions of them, praising the sun and howling at the rain and begging to be saved. So many. No matter how I want it, no matter how badly they need me, I can’t save them all.

            “And then there’s you, and you’re right here, and so undeniably _human_. I hate everyone. I hate even my own body, so pure, yet so tainted. I’m more human than I’ll ever want to be, and you make me feel more human with each passing moment we’re together. You confuse me, Harley. You make me stumble, and you could crush me into pulp if you wanted to.

            “All those voices, each of my children, crying out to me, and still I can remain tall.” Pam knelt down beside the tub; hers and Harley’s eyes were level now, and she held her gaze with her own. “And yet a single tear from you, and I lose myself. I crumble and dissolve. I feel heavy and solid and I hate you for it. Yet a single laugh from you, even a pity smile, and I’m better for it. You’re the only human being that’s ever…the only one I…millions of plants, thriving and growing, and there’s only one _you_. Only one you, and yet you’re constantly beaten down, tread upon, and there’s nothing I can do to make you bloom.”

            “Ivy, you’re…you’re scaring me…”

            _Good_. Good, because Pam was afraid, too. The trembling in her hands returned, and suddenly she was aware that perhaps it hadn’t been from hunger, or at least the hunger that could be satisfied with something as insubstantial as food. Her whole body felt stretched and flayed open, bones bared to Harley and Harley alone. Only she could reach inside, stroke the humanity that lay hidden within.

            “I love you, Harley Quinn. More than anything on this godforsaken planet. More than I’ve ever loved another.”

            “You—you can’t! You don’t know what you’re sayin’!”

            “I know how you make me feel,” Pam reached forward slowly, hand still shaking, careful, not wanting to frighten Harley, her rabbit girl, not wanting to chase her from the warmth of her gardens. “You fill me with warmth, Harley. I haven’t felt human in so long, but when we’re…when we’re _together_ , I _feel_ it. I feel like Pamela Isley, and am unashamed of it. I hate this sickening sack of flesh I’ve been cursed to live as, instead of a mighty oak, or an apple on its branches. But I don’t feel that—hatred when I’m with you. If that’s wrong, then nothing in this world has ever been right.”

            “But you _can’t_ love me! It ain’t possible! No one but Puddin’ can!”

            “Are you…?” Pam ventured, stroking Harley’s cheek with her thumb. “Are you saying that no one can love you, because _he_ says they can’t?”

            Harley was crying again. Pam closed her eyes, feeling as if she’d been hit. Harley deserved so much more.

            “But I just said it,” Pam stated softly, resting her forehead against Harley’s, “didn’t I? Have I ever lied to you before, Harley?”

            “N-no, but…”

            “I’ve seen the scars on your back, Harl.” Pam placed her free hand on Harley’s neck, fingers gently tracing the delicate flesh as if she were the petal of a temperamental flower. Harley stiffened, but didn’t pull away. “I’d be so sweet to you. You should have seen, when I was playing house, and the Batman visited. I was the perfect wife. What he saw was only the mask, and yet I had him fooled. Imagine, Harl. No more pain, no more fear. Just me, and warm sunlight, and a house and garden all our own.”

            “Red…”

            “I’m not even asking you to love me back.” Desperation had returned to Pam’s voice, and she knotted her hands in Harley’s soft hair. “I’m not even asking you to love me at _all_. Just stay with me, Harl. Don’t let him take you from me. You’re the only one I have. For _once_ , God, choose me. _Please_.”

            Harley turned her head away, leaving Pam to rest hers against her shoulder.

            “Don’t ya think I thought about it?” Harley whispered, the water around her rippling as she shook. “The whole way out here, don’tcha think it ever came up? When I got off that plane, I thought about just leavin’, going somewhere so far away no one could ever find me. But I ended up comin’ to find you anyway. I may not choose you first, Red, but I still choose you. Isn’t that enough?”

            “I’ve never been anyone’s first choice, so I guess now won’t be the last.”

            “Goddamn it, Red, I _want_ to want you first!” Harley put her head in her hands, curling up in a ball. “But Puddin’, I can’t just…there’s no way to explain it…I just…we need each other…he needs…I _need_ …”

            “Harley, listen to me carefully. You don’t have to believe me, but _please_ hear me. Joker. Is. Your. Sickness. In every meaning of the word. He’s going to use you up, drain you dry, and one day you’re going to die because _him_ , and long before you should!”

            “Ain’t true.”

            Pam put her head in her own hands. “I believe that you believe that, Harley. I’m sorry about everything he’s done to you, everything he’s made you believe. I just…I just wish you could believe me, too.”

            “I do,” Harley turned to her, resting her face against Pam’s neck. “I believe what you said, about how you feel. I believe that you believe that. And I’m sorry you believe that. Because I can never be good for you.”

            “If this is love that I feel for ya, then I think I might love ya both the same, but different? Puddin’ makes my heart all fluttery, too, but your words are so much nicer.” Harley removed her head so they were staring eye-to-eye again. Pam knew that both sets were bloodshot and not especially pretty at the moment. “Can I kiss you, Pam?”

            The answer, unspoken, was yes. Pam had kissed many people since her debut as Poison Ivy. She had felt many sorts of lips and different kinds of teeth behind them. Kissing Harley was softer, all nerves and trembling, like a real first kiss. Uncertain, and frankly not very good, but so genuine in its intention. The second kiss, hardly a breath after, was better. Harley’s hands found their way into Pam’s hair, so firmly that she thought the color might rub off onto Harley’s hands when they let go. If they let go. Her head filled with one constant phrase, repeated over and over like a greedy child calling for their most beloved possession: _choose_ _me_.

            “Give me time, Red,” Harley whispered, her forehead resting now on the edge of the tub. “I can’t…I can’t just…I _want you_ , but we can’t be together like ya want. We can’t. I wanna kiss you, and hold your hand, and let you hold me, and hear all those pretty words. I wanna wake up in the morning and know I’m gonna see you next to me. But I also want all that from Mr. J. This is so messed up. _I’m so messed up_.”

            What she was about to suggest would literally be like ripping her stomach in two. The idea of it made her want to vomit, but Harley was already occupying the tub.

            “Then don’t choose,” the words were almost a moan. “Don’t choose me, or him. Have us…have us both. If you’re not willing to leave, then I’m not willing to go. I’ll go with you, back to Gotham.”

            “You…you’re willing to _hurt_ yourself like that? For _me?_ ”

            Pam closed her eyes. “Yeah, I am.”

            “I’m sorry,” Harley choked back tears, pressing her face into Pam’s neck again, planting lazy kisses there. “I’m sorry, sorry, sorry. I’m messing everything up. Normal people, they can’t love two people at once.”

            “Maybe you can, Harl. After all,” Pam kissed away the tears from her eyes. “Your heart is much bigger than mine.”


End file.
